Despite broader technological developments, virtually all financial firms in the region are still struggling from data and application silos, according to a report by US-based InterSystems.
98 percent of Asia Pacific financial services providers have identified data and application silos, according to a report by InterSystems. This has undoubtedly contributed to the 87 percent of respondents in the region who said they were frustrated from trying to use data to drive decision-making.
«Digital transformation and technology adoption in the APAC financial services sector is still in the incremental stage,» said InterSystems Singapore country lead Kenneth Kuek. «Overcoming their data management challenges will be the key to financial services providers’ success in the coming years.»
Access Impeded
Amongst the top challenges, most were related to data accessibility with 36 percent of respondents not able to report on all relevant data, 35 percent unable to obtain data from all required sources and 34 percent suffering from delayed data access.
«The challenges largely stem from overly complex data infrastructures, implemented with a disjointed set of technologies and applications. This leads to silos that make it difficult to obtain information and insights in a timely manner, and in a way that is easy to interpret and share,» Kuek said.
Data Fabrics
According to InterSystems, the use of data fabrics – an approach that harmonizes data from multiple sources to make it usable and actionable – was well-received by respondents in the region, of which 79 percent said would consider implementing such a solution.
«To address data silo issues and getting up-to-date data, architectural approaches like data fabrics can speed up and simplify access to disparate data across the organization by providing an integrated source of information,» Kuek explained, underlining analytics tools, AI and machine learning platforms, and cloud-first data platforms as other solutions.
The report was based on a survey of 554 business leaders at financial firms including commercial, investment, and retail banks across 12 countries worldwide. InterSystems was established in 1978 and headquartered in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The firm serves clients across healthcare, finance, manufacturing and supply chain sectors from 25 offices globally.
